Cultural Logic and Maya Identity
Rethinking Constructivism and Essentialism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2187368 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E F Fischer (0000-0002-7272-9832, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 473-500 |
| Publication date | 1999-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Current Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/200046 |
| OpenAlex | W2271046117 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 96 |
| References cited | 45 |
Ironically, as many Western scholars have turned to constructivist theories to explain new ethnic movements and forms of identity politics, the subjects of their studies have begun to embrace a form of essentialism to justify their political legitimacy. This article presents a critical rethinking of constructivist and essentialist approaches to identity formation and maintenance. Drawing upon Maya ethnotheoretical models of identity, I introduce the analytic concept of cultural logic-generative principles realized through cognitive schemas that promote intersubjective continuity and are conditioned by the unique contingencies of life histories and structural positions in political-economic systems. I show how the concept of metaphysical balance in Maya cosmology illuminates the working of a uniquely Maya cultural logic, and I find in Maya cognitive models of the heart and soul a theory that mirrors that of cultural logic
Aesthetics · Cultural identity · Epistemology · Essentialism · Identity (music · Legitimacy · Maya · Metaphysics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Indigenous Cultures and Socio-Education · Law · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Simians, Savages, Skulls, and Sex
Masyarakat Adat, Difference, and the Limits of Recognition in Indonesia’s Forest Zone.
Beyond Ecoliberal “Common Futures”
Landscape Change in the Maya Region, 1450–1910 ad
Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers
Psychological Essentialism of Human Categories
Protestant Ethic and Prosperity
Men in Paradise
What Makes a Place Ethnic
Restorative validity and healing through inquiry
“We are the mayas”
“On the Raggedy Edge of Risk”
Over Distant Waters
Somali Stories
Intimate Publics
“The More You Kill the More You Will Live”
For the Love of a Good Dog
After the Great White Error … The Great Black Mirage
Inventing the Heterozygote
Pulp Fictions of Indigenism
“There Is a Land Where Everything Is Pure”
Engaged Archaeology
Cacique for a Neoliberal Age
A Theology of Mountains from the Margins
Bilingualism, Pan‐Indianism and Politics in Northern Argentina The Guaraní's Struggle for Identity and Recognition
Indigenous Knowledge
The Culture of Marginality
Creole Neighborhood or Miskito Community?; A Case Study of Identity Politics in a Mosquito Coast Land Dispute
Creole Neighborhood or Miskito Community?; A Case Study of Identity Politics in a Mosquito Coast Land Dispute
Bilingualism, Pan-Indianism and Politics in Northern Argentina The Guarani's Struggle for Identity and Recognition
The Agricultural Deities of Q ’Eqchi’ Mayas, Tzuultaq’as
“We Are Not Indigenous!”
"We Are Not Indigenous!"
Chol Understandings of Suicide and Human Agency
Does “Susto” Really Exist? Indigenous Knowledge and Fright Disorders Among Q’eqchi’ Maya in Belize
Water, centering, and the beginning of time at Middle Preclassic Nixtun-Ch'ich', Petén, Guatemala
Cafís en La “Ciudad Blanca”
Practicality of Ethnic Group Self-Identification in Areas of Military Conflict
Complexity, Cooperation, and Public Goods
Collaborative Archaeology, Relational Memory, and Stakeholder Action at Three Henequen Haciendas in Yucatan, Mexico
Kitchens as Cultural Mediums
(IM)Materiality and Practice
Working Borders
Eating the money
Framing Maya culture
Monumental Ambivalence
Non-Asian Tourists' preferred attributes
Commoditizing culture
La identidad maya-poqomchi’ guatemalteca en sus manifestaciones espirituales y religiosas
Collaborative Archaeology and Strategic Essentialism
Archaeologies of Persistence
Hilos de continuidad y cambio. Tejiendo unidad en antropología
Pueblos indígenas S. A.? La cultura como política y propiedad en la bioprospección farmacéutica
Into the Minds of Ancients
The pilgrimage to the living mountains
Tourism in the Mundo Maya
Maya Reborn
The Cultural Logic of Hierarchy in the Tarascan State
Defining Community in the Upper Belize River Valley during the Late Classic Period
The Bones of the Ancestors as Inalienable Possessions
Decoding ethics
Beyond Participant Observation
Broccoli and Desire
Migration, everyday life and the ethnicity bias
Maya heritage
Backing Weakness
Out of Many, One
Indianización como proceso y como discurso en Chiapas, México
Buscando espiritualmente os Mayas
Emotional Landscapes of Risk
The Number is the Beast
Quetzaltenango's First Mayan Mayor
Terms of engagement
The 'Culture' of Exclusion
Maya Intimacy with the Mountains
Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America
Cloth, Gender, Continuity, and Change
Mestizaje and the Significance of Phenotype in Guatemala
Authenticity and decolonization
It Was Simply Their Word
Ethical Challenges of Parenting Interventions in Low- to Middle-Income Countries
Judas off the Noose
The Moral Force of Indigenous Politics
Old Jokes and New Multiculturalisms
A heritage of ambiguity
Structural Adjustment, Spatial Imaginaries, and "Piracy" in Guatemala's Apparel Industry
Socializing Puros Pericos (Little Parrots)
Words and things in Yucatán
A Dog's Life Among the Teenek Indians (Mexico)
Alterity and the Particular Limits of Universalism
Maya Medicine in the Biological Gaze
Are Ethnic Groups Biological "Species" to the Human Brain
The Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions
Feeling their way through their cultural roots
Of Networks and Hierarchies
Beyond the Permitted Indian? Bolivia and Guatemala in an Era of Neoliberal Developmentalism1
Tortillas for the gods
In the eyes of the ancestors
Rigoberta Menchú and the story of all poor Guatemalans
The black Atlantic
Shared reasoning in the field
Rethinking linguistic relativity
Metaphors We Live By
Introduction
A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning
The Indian Christ, the Indian King
The Body in the Mind
Introduction
The Development of Cognitive Anthropology
Unimagining the Maya
Beyond “Culture”
Factual Fissures
Defining tradition
The Symbolism of Subordination
In other worlds
Breath on the Mirror
The Transformation of the Hummingbird
Who are the Indians? Reconceptualizing Indigenous Identity, Resistance, and the Role of Social Science in Latin America
Genealogies for the Present in Cultural Anthropology
Cultural Identity and Global Process
Unnatural Emotions
Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala
Anchored Communities
Time and the Work of Anthropology
In the World of the Sun
Forget Culture
After Authenticity at an American Heritage Site
The West in the Future
Cultural Invention and the Dilemma of Authenticity
Veiled Sentiments
Questions of Identity
A Theory of Structure
Mayan culture
Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties
| Unique citing works | 96 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,69 |
| Citation span | 2000 - 2026 (27) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 96 |